A week had passed since the white light faded.
Seven days since Ellie's final smile dissolved into motes of soft radiance. Seven days since the Sacred Echo of the Final Vision ended and the real world slammed back into place like a coffin lid. Seven days since Eryndor knelt in the blood-soaked snow of the northern wasteland with empty hands and a heart that had begun to turn black.
The place where the Emperors fell, where Lucifer's head burst, where Seraphina's severed head rolled across the ice, and where Ellie died protecting him—would never be forgotten. The royal knights who eventually arrived found only devastation on a scale that defied comprehension. Mountains cleaved in half. Forests reduced to ash and glass. Rivers of frozen blood. Residual mana so dense it still warped the air weeks later. They could not piece together what had happened. They could only name it.
They called it the Ashen Vale.
And the name spread.
Newspapers across the capital carried the same grim headline in bold black ink:
ASHEN VALE CLAIMS THE NORTH — WHAT MONSTER WALKED THERE?
Scholars argued. Generals whispered. Common folk made the sign against evil whenever the name was spoken. The Ashen Vale had entered history the way all true catastrophes do—not as a battlefield, but as a scar upon the world itself.
Eryndor did not care.
He sat in a cheap inn on the eastern edge of the capital, in a room that smelled of damp wood and cheap incense. The bed remained untouched. He had not slept properly in seven days. His long black hair hung in tangled strands across his face. Dark circles hollowed the skin beneath his eyes. The black corruption that had begun in his heart during the final battle with Lucifer had not retreated. It pulsed faintly beneath his ribs like a second, colder heartbeat.
He had cried until there were no tears left. Then he had cried some more.
Now he simply existed.
Jae watched and started to feel bad. "he shouldn't have to endured all of this."
The wooden stairs creaked under his boots as he descended into the common room. The air was thick with the scent of ale, roasted meat, and the low murmur of too many voices speaking the same name.
"—Ashen Vale—"
"—Emperors dead, they say—"
"—no survivors—"
"—some say it was a Great Monster—"
"—others say it was something worse—"
Eryndor walked past them all without slowing. Their words washed over him like distant rain. He took a seat at the far end of the bar, back to the wall, and rested both forearms on the scratched counter.
The bar lady was a middle-aged woman with kind eyes and a permanent tiredness around her mouth. She wiped a glass with a cloth and glanced at him twice before speaking.
"Young man," she said softly, "you don't look good, you shouldnt look like that at your age."
Eryndor did not lift his head. He simply raised two fingers.
"Drink."
She poured. He drank. The alcohol burned, but it did nothing to the cold inside his chest.
She poured again without being asked. Her voice gentled further.
"Hey… let's talk. What's wrong? Is everything okay? It's not healthy to drink like this."
Silence stretched. The common room noise continued around them, but at the bar it felt as though the world had narrowed to the space between two people.
Eryndor's fingers tightened around the glass until the wood creaked.
"…I lost someone I deeply care about," he said at last. His voice was rough, scraped raw from nights of screaming into empty air. "And they would still be here if it wasn't for me. If it wasn't for me being a bad brother. Selfish. Forcing them to help me fight people I hate. I'm just a trash brother who deserves to die."
The bar lady's expression softened with genuine pity.
"Don't say that. No one deserves to die. Look, kid… I may not know who you are, but I don't think you're bad."
Something inside Eryndor snapped.
His palm slammed down onto the counter with enough force to crack the thick wooden surface. Glasses rattled. Conversations died mid-sentence. Every head in the common room turned.
Eryndor stood, face to face with the woman, eyes burning with something far darker than mere anger.
"BULLSHIT!"
The word tore out of him like a blade.
Jae was shocked to hear him scream like that.
"WHAT DO YOU KNOW?! WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK DO YOU KNOW?! YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT!"
He leaned closer. The black corruption in his heart pulsed harder, sending a sharp spike of pain through his chest. He ignored it.
"I'll tell you what kind of man I am. I am a middle brother who lost his older brother to a Yokai invasion."
Flashbacks crashed through him without mercy.
Caelan's face—calm even as thousands of Yokai surrounded him. The way he had smiled while tears ran down his cheeks. The last words spoken through the roar of fire and claws:
"Run, Eryndor. You are the future of this kingdom. My brother."
Eryndor's voice rose, cracking.
"I JUST RAN AWAY! I WATCHED HIM GET ENGULFED BY THAT FUCKING FIRE! I WATCHED HIM FIGHT THOUSANDS OF FUCKING YOKAIS AND DIE!"
More memories.
Ellie as a child, clinging to his sleeve. Ellie training with a wooden sword under his patient guidance. Ellie smiling the day he told her she had talent. Ellie being taken by the Divine Contractors while he lay broken and bleeding. Ellie grown, calling him brother again after thirty years. Ellie shoving him aside so the Blood Piercing Spear would take her instead of him.
"SAME SHIT HAPPENED WITH MY LITTLE SISTER! I INVOLVED HER IN A FIGHT SHE DIDN'T BELONG IN AND SHE ALSO DIED SACRIFICING HER LIFE FOR MINE! I'M A FUCKING BROTHER WHO SACRIFICED HIS OWN FUCKING SIBLINGS TO SAVE HIS OWN FUCKING SKIN! I LOST EVERYTHING! I HAVE NOTHING! AND YOU THINK I'M NOT BAD?! THAT'S FUNNY! I'M THE WORST MAN IN THIS WHOLE FUCKING CAPITAL! I SHOULD BE DEAD—NOT THEM!!!"
Tears finally broke free again, hot and useless. At the same moment the sharp pain in his heart spiked so violently that his vision whited out at the edges. He clutched his chest with one hand, staggered back from the counter, and ran.
People scrambled out of his way. He slammed through the inn doors hard enough to crack the frame and kept running.
The city blurred. Streets. Alleys. Gates. Open road. He did not stop until the capital was far behind and the land rose into the foothills of the eastern mountains. Only then did his legs give out.
He fell to his knees on a high cliff overlooking a vast expanse of dark forest and distant lights. The wind tore at his hair and cloak. His heart hammered so hard he could hear it in his ears.
"Thump. Thump. Thump."
"Why…" His voice was barely human. "Why was it you guys and not me…?"
He threw his head back and screamed until his throat tore.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The world answered by going black.
Not the soft black of closed eyes. Absolute, total darkness. The cliff, the wind, the distant city—all of it vanished. In that perfect void a soft, wet, sliding sound rose.
Hissssssss…
A voice followed. Smooth. Ancient. Amused. The same voice that had spoken to him in Hell thirty years ago when his body had been broken and his soul had been willing to trade everything.
"Eryndor. I'm quite disappointed."
The Abyssal Serpent.
The Herald of the Abyss who had granted him the snake blessing of regeneration and the black corruption that now lived in his heart.
"You're in this sorry state. How pathetic."
Eryndor's head snapped up even though there was nothing to see.
"Shut your mouth."
The Serpent's laughter was the sound of scales sliding over bone.
"Still so emotional. You screamed about your siblings again. Caelan. Ellie. Always the same names. Always the same guilt. Do you think drowning yourself in self-hatred will bring them back? Do you think the Divine Flames will fall because you drink yourself into oblivion and cry on cliffs?"
"Don't you dare speak their names—"
"I will speak whatever I wish. I own a piece of your soul, boy. I watched you accept the pact. I watched you climb out of the grave. I watched your heart begin to blacken the moment you chose power over peace. And now you kneel here pretending the pain is still pure."
A pause, heavy and cold.
"Reality check, Eryndor. Your older brother died so you could live. Your little sister died so you could live. That is the truth. Not because you are trash. Because they chose you. And every second you waste hating yourself is another second you spit on that choice. The Divine Flames are still breathing. The contractors who broke Ellie are still smiling. And you are here… broken… drinking… screaming at empty air."
The darkness pressed closer.
"Get up. Or stay on your knees and prove them right—that the middle brother was never worth the sacrifice."
The void shattered.
Wind returned. The cliff returned. The distant lights of the capital glittered far below. The sharp pain in Eryndor's chest faded as suddenly as it had come, leaving only a cold, steady pulse of black corruption.
He released his grip on his heart.
Slowly, he stood.
The tears had stopped. The shaking had stopped. What remained was something quieter and far more dangerous.
He turned away from the edge of the cliff and began walking down the mountain path. Each step was measured. Each breath was controlled. The black corruption in his heart no longer felt like a wound. It felt like a blade being sharpened.
The hunt for the Divine Flames had begun again.
Another week passed.
On a remote mountain road far from any major city, a convoy of royal knights marched in tight formation. Chains rattled. Dozens of slaves—men, women, even a few older children—shuffled forward with heads bowed, wrists bound, ankles linked. The lead knight rode at the front, polished armor gleaming in the late afternoon sun.
He raised a gloved hand.
"Halt."
A lone figure stood in the center of the road.
Hooded. Cloaked in black. Perfectly still. The wind moved the edges of the cloak, but the man beneath it did not.
The lead knight drew his sword with a metallic rasp.
"Sir, this is a restricted transport route. You are trespassing. I will have to take you into custody."
The hooded man did not answer.
He simply vanished.
One moment he stood twenty paces away. The next he was directly behind the lead knight. A soft, wet sound followed—like a ripe fruit being parted. The knight's head slid cleanly from his shoulders and tumbled into the dust. The body remained upright for half a second before collapsing.
The slaves stared in stunned silence.
Then hope bloomed across their faces.
"We're free—"
Jae and the divine flame was still watching above watching ernydor kill the royal guard.
The hooded man turned toward them.
He walked forward without hurry. One by one the remaining knights charged, shouting orders, raising blades, calling on whatever scraps of mana they possessed. None of it mattered. The hooded man's movements were economical, almost lazy. A single step. A single cut. Another head fell. Another body dropped. Within less than a minute the entire escort lay dead in the dirt, blood soaking into the mountain road.
The slaves began to cheer.
The hooded man kept walking.
When the first slave realized the truth it was already too late. The man's blade—plain, unadorned, yet impossibly sharp—rose and fell. Chains snapped. Bodies crumpled. Screams rose and were cut short. He killed every single one of them. Men who had begged. Women who had clutched children that were no longer there. He showed no hesitation, no mercy, no expression.
Jae eyes started to twitch his body started to twitch he wanted to throw up as he watched ernydor kill innocent slaves.
When the last body stopped twitching he bent, picked up the head of the lead knight by the hair, and walked to the edge of the cliff that overlooked a small mountain village nestled in the valley below.
He threw the head.
The head seemed to fall unatually slow, turning over and over and over .It arced through the air, trailing a thin ribbon of blood, and landed with a wet, heavy sound in the middle of the village square.
A little girl was the first to notice. She had been chasing a wooden ball. The wet sound made her turn. She stared at the severed head for a full second before the scream tore out of her throat.
Others turned. More screams. Panic spread like fire. People ran in every direction, shouting, stumbling, dragging children.
On the cliff above, the hooded man watched them flee.
Then, slowly, he reached up and pulled the hood back.
Long black hair fell free. Exhausted eyes—no longer red from crying, but cold and clear—looked down upon the chaos he had created. The black corruption in his heart pulsed once, steady and strong. Behind those eyes the newly inherited threads of Ellie's Sacred Echo stirred, showing him faint, overlapping possibilities of the path ahead.
Eryndor's voice was quiet, yet it carried on the mountain wind as if the world itself had been waiting to hear it.
"This time… it will be different."
"I will avenge you both."